Local wireless company makes Waves in the US

Perth-based wireless technology manufacturer, Wavenet, has secured a US order worth about $3 million for its Wombat vehicle modems.

General manager, Richard Timms, said the deal boded well for the financial year ahead as the compnay already had orders worth more than $5 million

"We have ended this last financial on a good note with just over $1.5 million in net profit. We are confident of another strong year going forward and this deal goes a long way towards underpinning that," he said.

The order has come from Virginia-based Geologic Solutions, which will use the Wombat modems as part of its MobileMax tracking and asset management products.

Wombat provides an extendable modem framework, allowing selection from multiple wireless technologies (Mobitex, GPRS and CDMA) for implementation into a wireless solution. It has on-board programmability for hosting third-party applications, providing a foundation for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA), Automatic Vehicle Locations (AVL) and other wireless solutions.

The Wombat is Wavenet's biggest revenue generator because even though it is outsold by the other modules, Wombat offers much higher margins, according to Timms.

"We also have some high expectations for WaveReader," he said. "It is a relatively new product, but our lead customer in Queensland, Technisyst, likes our trial system so there will hopefully be some follow on orders from that."

Timms soon plans to develop VAR partnerships in the US and Europe and to expand Wavenet's local presence, primarily through a strategic acquisition.

He said Wavenet would look to acquire a company with geographical presence on the East Coast that is turning over more than $10 million a year to help expand reach into the local higher volume markets.

"We are also looking for a company that can provide recurring revenues and has a sustainable relationship with its customer base. Intellectual Property is not top of the list. You can always get that one way or another but long-term customer relationships are not easy to come by," he said.

"Someone who has presence in the marketplace would be much more valued than someone who has just invented the next killer application."

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